How to Create an Abalone Effect on Wood

This project was one of those pleasant surprises you get when you cut corners and it pays off. I had this idea in my head that I wanted to learn how to carve into wood. I am always trying to learn new skills and this one was next on my list. The idea I had was to keep it simple at first and just carve wavy grooves into my wood. It was my laziness that resulted in this snakeskin-effect Shou sugi ban.

It was not my intention for this project to be Shou sugi ban but here is how it happened. I watched a couple of youtube videos on how to carve wood and I found a guy using a Die Grinder. That appealed to me because it seemed to go pretty quick. Little did I realize that video was super speeded up. I found it really hard going and after an hour I had only carved one wavy groove.
My next idea was to use a wood router and cut the wavy grooves, which worked like a bomb. The only downfall was the square edges the router left in the wood. I ended up spending an hour sanding the edges off. Then I remembered that when I previously used the Shou Sugi Ban technique on this wall hanging if you burnt the wood it sanded very easily. And that is how I discovered this snakeskin effect in my Shou Sugi ban wall hanging. I say snakeskin because I think some of the designs look like snakeskin scales.

I am a self-taught woodworker and DIY fanatic and don’t claim to be an expert in what I am sharing with you today. I am only sharing the techniques I used to achieve this really cool snakeskin-effect wall hanging. Over the past couple of years, I have done a few Shou sugi ban projects. I have experimented with using different types of wood as well as different techniques on how to add colour to Shou Sugi Ban. My personal favourite is pine, I have found the effects to be more dramatic. Another advantage of pine is that the wood is softer so it burns quicker. For this project, I recycled some pine side support from a four-poster bed. They were varnished but a couple of passes through a wood thicknesser and it was removed in no time. I would also recommend choosing wood that you can see has pretty woodgrain.

To cut the wavy lines into the wood I used my cheap handheld router. I do have a large router but the base plate is so big and it was hard to see where you are routering. I used a straight edge router bit to randomly router the lines into the wood. You can see below what I meant by the square edges. I could have used a groove router bit, but I only had a small one.

The next step was to remove the straight edges caused by the router. At first, I used a sanding block but that took forever and it was hell on my hands. Next, I used a die grinder but that was not much better. I don’t think I was strong enough to hold the die grinder and use it correctly.

I repeated this process on the remaining wood before cutting the wood to size.

I used a blowtorch to burn the wood. You need to burn the wood deep enough to cause the wood to get a crackled charred surface.

Next, I used a small wire brush to remove the charred surface. This made a big difference to the edges, but I did need to do this a couple of times to get the desired effect. It was at this stage I noticed that the deeper I burnt the more dramatic the wood was starting to look.

I repeated this process on all the panels.

Once all the grooves are sanded you can start on the surface. You can continue using the wire brush or you can do it the cheat way. You can use a coarse nylon brush attached to your drill or Die grinder.

This works really fast but is very messy. Please make sure your wear a respirator and safety glasses when doing this. The image below shows how messy this can be.

When using the course nylon brush, make sure you sand in the direction of the wood grain. In a few spots below you can see where I did not do this. This will show up negatively once the colour is added. To fix it I had to burn it again and sand it again.

Burning some wood deeper caused a beautiful wavy texture on the surface. Another factor that affects the final outcome is sanding. The deeper you sand into the surface the lighter the wood will become. My aim was to have a mixture of a few different colours, the middle panel in the image was not sanded as deep as the other two.

Burning some wood deeper caused a beautiful wavy texture on the surface. Another factor that affects the final outcome is sanding. The deeper you sand into the surface the lighter the wood will become. My aim was to have a mixture of a few different colours, the middle panel below was not sanded as deep as the other two.

I am sure this will be a big surprise. I used a $2 acrylic paint from a budget store to add this colour. Another surprise is that was the only colour I used. The variation in the colours was caused by the depth of burning and sanding as I mentioned above.

I have done a tutorial on how I added colours to the Shou sugi ban and all the products used. And also on how to apply them to get the best effects that I found in my trials. To start, apply some water to the surface using a spray bottle.

I diluted some paint with water in a small container and applied it to the surface with a foam brush.

Cover the surface and leave the paint to soak in for about 5 minutes.

Using clean rags wipe away the excess paint. In some areas, I wiped the surface harder which also created another colour.

To seal the wood I used Danish oil which I applied with a soft rag. This made the colours pop dramatically.

If you are not happy with the colours in the final step, do not despair. You can always go back and either burn the wood to go darker or sand to make it lighter. I felt this panel had too much blue, so I used the coarse nylon brush and removed some of the colours.

You will need to reapply the oil to get the colours to pop again.

I have added some close-ups of the snakeskin effect that this Shou sugi ban technique created.

These photos show all the different textures created on the surface. The knots and wood grain do not seem to burn away so they are always more raised and darker than the rest.

The panel on the far right is an example of what happens when you don’t sand down to the light wood.

I don’t have great light in my lounge, so the colours look even more different.

The second image is with the lights switched on. It looks different yet again. But the true colour is the images taken outside in natural light.

This headboard was made from recycled kitchen cupboard doors.

A Pallet wall mounted bar for outside.

I have lots of great projects that can be found on my website Unique Creations By Anita